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Ok, this is it, after months of putting it off I have finally worked up the nerve to stick some of my previous work into a portfolio...so feel free to comment and critique to your hearts content...anyway tell me what you think if you can get thru it.




This is a tale based off of characters from the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R Martin, obviously didnt deem it fitting to finish.
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Nitengales

Water rushed by and Janei Lannister stood in a grove of trees, her green eyes like a pair of shimmering emeralds in the night. Her captors surrounded her at their campfires, none of them paying her much attention. To them she was simply a high-born ten year-old who knew nothing and would trouble them no more. No, she was not the true threat, but a mere hostage. Her sandy hair looked blanched in the light of the moon.
Suddenly there was a ripple in the air and a darkness within the blackness of the night. She didn't make a sound, in fact her eyes were the only indication at all that anything was amiss...and no one paid attention to a mere child, a slip of a girl tied up to a tree. She was bait, it had been an attempt to lure her brothers into a trap which she knew would never work anyway.

There was a woman there at her side working at the ropes as they slipped away. She was tall with olive skin like the desert people, and dark blue eyes like a roiling sea. "Come little one," the woman whispered, and she took her hand, leading her into a wind. One moment they were there and the next they were both gone like theives in the night.

As they re-emerged on solid ground Janei's mind lingered with her brothers. She was glad that she and this Lady, for there was no doubt that she was of noble blood by the look of her, had managed to foil the Reavers plans. She would not be a hostage for them, a pawn for them to manipulate so easily.

"Why did you rescue me?" She asked, once she and the lady sat down at a spansive table. "Didn't you want to be rescued, love? You are just a child now, but they know that you carry a great deal of weight within the reigns of power. Your family is the wealthiest in all of the world...what better hostage could they want?" Janei looked darkly at her then and said, "I am also one of the most influental, why would they risk it? My brothers would hunt them down like there was no tomorrow...they will come you know." The Lady smiled, "I volunteered, they promised that they would not endanger your safety by spoiling the element of surprise, so if we are all men or women in our case, well then we won't be having any of that will we?" Janie looked into the woman's face, it was quite lovely and made even more so by that long river of obsidian, and against her better judgement she reached out to touch it. "Your hair is so beautiful," the girl told her. "Thank you, love, but yours will be just as nice when you grow up. You are but just a little thing right now, but your almost a full grown woman and when you are men far and wide will come to be your husband." The girl's eyes grew hard as as agates then, "They only want me for my position and money. My cousin already made that plain to me. She married a king...and once he has your money..." the words hung there unspoken, angry and bitter. There was nothing the princess could say to her, it was true after all...here women were not valued for their mind or ability, only their name and dowry. As for dowry's this child, this little girl would have the second greatest in the kingdom.

When the princess thought of this she realized that this girl with all of her spirit was really too bright for that sort of thing and it would be a tragedy to lose such a brilliant little firefly to a life of servitude to some lord or another. The one thing that concerned and troubled her was the girls temperment. The Lannisters were'nt known for their tempers, but they were corrupt and cut-throats to no end. It had made them many friends and even more enemies.

Nonetheless war was coming, it was here and there was no help for it. This girl, a mere child of ten had already lost her parents to the never-ending battles. Her father had assumed the position of General and Hand of the King after his brother's murder almost a decade ago, but his reign had been short as well, as it often was nowadays with the King's Hand. He spoke with the voice of the King and thus was viewed directly as a threat to all of those who wished to threaten the soverienty of Westeros. As it happened he was also the general for his brother's army and as the Greyjoys gained more power it became nearly impossible to defeat them.

House Greyjoy had managed several miraculous victories in the last ten years in which they were questing the throne. With Lord Balon gone, his brothers along with his two surviving children had continued the cause where the old man had left off. Lady Asha along with her uncles Aerion and Victorian were doing what they did best, pillaging, buring and moving on. They had begun in the North,reducing Winterfell to a pile of ashes while taking the nobles of the other coastal strongholds prisoner and ransoming them at exorbant prices then moved south while Lord Theon, Lord Balon's only surviving son ruled on their island as his father's successor.

War was coming, it was approaching quickly through blood and fire and Janei had been just one more tool that would bring the Iron Throne into the Greyjoys' questing fingers. All of the other claimants for the throne were dead, they had seen to that. Stannis, the former king's brother had been killed by the wildlings in the North, while his nephew had died of poisoning at his wedding, his youngest brother was also dead in battle. The king's last surviving son had abdicated the throne, a child of ten (rather than face execution and a protracted war with the last living member of the true royal family, Queen Daenerys and her dragons) and his daughter had been married off. So now there were only the pirates, and as they moved closer and closer to the south there seemed none but the weakening Lannister army to stop them...but could they?


Broken Queens

The noon sun blazed, scorching the bleached sand and causing the scene to shimmer with waves of heat. Prince Trystane Martell, third in line to his father's throne gazed out into the distance. He closed his eyes and imagined a cool breeze, a green oasis in this desert where he had been born. Suddenly his golden eyes popped open, alert and frightfully aware. He shivered with a horrible memory and
a premonition all at once. He looked around, sensing the presence of someone else, someone was intruding...Tyrek. He knew it had to be his warden searching for him in his mind, trying to find him in the physical world. Trystane had returned to Sunspear to be alone, to regroup and sort things out. He thought that being around familiar things might make it better. A year ago it might have, two years ago certainly, but now it was pointless. All he saw, when he looked around were ghosts...shadows of the past. The castle in itself was a cold reminder of his father's death...of his mother's passing as well. He had tried to forget as he trained in the House of Bones across the Summer Sea to forget what had happened here but the ghost lingered, the memory remained like a haunting song.

This had been his home, his life, his entire world. All that remained here now was what was left of his family...and even that was dwindling rapidly. His sister had gone to marry one of the Lannisters in the Reach but he had one of them here as his own wife. He had heard rumors...stories whispered by the maids amongst themselves. He wasn't deaf, anymore than his wife was. They had heard it as the servants gossiped about his poor little princess... Myrcella was a brave girl though, and he admired her courage in the face of what might have proven too humiliating for some ladies of noble birth. His pale faced princess with hair as pale as the moon and eyes as green as the darkest emerald was a child of incest. They never discussed it but it was there as big as day and as hideous as a dragon with it's heart cut out. As strong as she was she had never had the courage to broach the subject, and he refused to bring it up. His parents had tried, before their deaths. His mother loved her daughter in law but there was still the knowledge that she was so many things that a princess should not be, and in a sense the assumption that she was a princess was now in doubt. Trystane had closed his ears to it all. He heard it and that was all. He wouldn't allow his family, their advisors nor even her family to challenge it. The dowry had been paid in the form of support. It wasn't their fault that her brother had been killed...

He gasped as if he were drowning. He had sworn he wouldn't do this, he wouldn't dwell on the things that had already happened. He couldnt bring her brother back. He was just as far gone as was his own uncle. It was in a sense fair. No one could say anything against House Martell where her brother was concerned, they hadn't murdered him. Oh no, that was his intended bride's grandmother...the blood was on her hands. But her family had killed his uncle, and there was no question about that. It was, of course, a technicality. One of their soldiers had killed him, fought honorably, or as honorably as the Mountain(that Rides) could. The man was as big as a mountain and he killed Trystane's uncle. In fact he had killed and raped Trystane's aunt as well (which is why Oberyn sought his life in a duel to the death) but he had learned a valuable lesson a bit too late; Prince Oberyn was called the Red Vyper for a reason. Now his uncle was dead and buried with nothing more than his killer and an apology note. He remembered against wanting to the day that the Mountain was executed. It was the least they could do for Oberyn, but it didn't seem deserving in Trystane's heart. The crime had been much more terrible than the punishment. Oberyn had been a prince, forth in line to rule, and the reigning prince's brother. Simple death didn't seem good enough, not after they saw the body of their poor uncle, no eyes, no teeth...all for the love of his sister and her children. As they watched him die he remembered the look in his own sister's eyes that day. It was a glare of pure hatred, the likes of which he had never seen before, and only saw it again once again...when Lord Theon of the Greyjoys killed the queen.

He closed his eyes again, trying to shake off the image of the last member of the royal family being murdered by a man who she thought cared for her. He wondered about that now, he wondered if it were possible for a pirate-blooded man to love or even become fond of someone like that. The Dragon-queen had been a distant cousin to them, and infact her brother had been married to their aunt. He remembered nothing about her beyond her appearance...the eerie violet eyes, the silver hair, she looked like a goddess, "The Stormborn," he said aloud, ( a nickname they had given the princess at birth on account that she was born during a terrible storm) the pain of memory searing his heart. That had been the day that everything changed. Through the shared connection with his mentor he shared the memory as if he had been there, holding the shattered queen in his arms.

What is Dead Can Never Die

Asha Greyjoy, a tall, sculpted princess took in the stars and regarded them. They were a familiar comfort, this far from the sea. All her life she had smelled the fresh air of the Summer Sea but for the last two years she had been bound to the land of the greenlanders far from it. The best she could do was to savour the fleeting moments when she put her ship, the Black Wind to sea, and had to take a river when she could get it.

There was no help for it though, she had to honor her father's dying wish, it was in the blood of every member of their house, to reclaim the lands that had once been held by their ancestor Lord Harrenhal the Black. He had been bigger than life and held all of the lands from the north to the Reach, but after his death the Greyjoys had struggled to hold on, losing more and more until all they were left with were the Iron Isles. Pyke, Great Wyk and Wyk were hardly what one would call habitable, but the ironmen had managed to carve an existence out of it all the same. They were fisherman and above all ship builders. They built ships better than anyone in all of the Seven Kingdoms, really they were the best in the world.

Now her brother had conquered the Iron Throne, a feat even their esteemed ancestor had never managed (he was defeated by the dragonlords). When first they began this conquest she would never would have considered entrusting him with the task of winning the Greyjoy's the keys to the kingdom. Still, it wasn't a good thing to leave him to his own devices for too long, and with that she quickly navigated her way through the strange city. It smelled, it actually reeked in a way that she had never known a city could. She had heard that they could had been told stories of the places like this. In fact her brother's wife had told him all about it and why she hated the place. Like them, King's Landing was not her home and she had no love for it whatsoever. Her home had been Winterfell which now lay in ashes.

Asha saw the Red Keep looming over the rest of the city, Maegor, one of the early Targaryen kings had built it. It wasn't a beautiful place, it was more of an awe inspiring sort of construction but beauty had not come into the plans for the most part. As she approached the mourners scurried out of her way, and then a thought struck her. A building not far from the Red Keep caught her eye...the White Tower. The queens knights had not perished in the defense of the city, but rather did what they could to defend the city from ultimate demise.

Instead of going to see her brother, she decided to head over to the Kingsguards's headquarters for a moment and see what the premeire knights of Westeros' throne were up to. They had clearly failed to protect their queen, but there had been no help for it. By the time they arrived it was done, and Theon was not shabby with a sword, although his weapon of choice was most often a bow. She sighed remembering him from the time he could walk, he had been most skilled with a bow. Most ironmen were at home with swords, but not so with her little brother. He was probably the best hunter in all of the realm. He might not pay the iron price, but when it came down to it there was no denying that he was a Greyjoy of Pyke.

Asha approached the pristine building , surveyed the guards, handed one the axe she wore strapped to her back to put them at their ease and passed. She had never been in the White Tower before, nor did she know anyone who had. In most of her family's experience they didn't mingle with kings and knights of this calibur. Her uncle Euron was a reknowned pirate and she and the rest of her family were sea captains who did as they pleased, but King's Landing wasn't one of their haunts on a whole. King's Landing was too bogged down in politics and legalities for them so they stayed away unless there was some money to be made. Not to mention seeing on of their vessels in the port made people uneasy, and the ships were both well-known and hightly recognizable. Hers was the Black Wind a black ship with black sails; her uncle Euron was the captain of the Silence, with it's red sails, and of course her father had the Great Kraken, which now belonged to the family...and technically Theon was the head of the family but he already had his own ship, the Sea b***h named after her oddly enough.

When Theon and Asha met, they weren't on the best of terms. He had been away for nine years and she had grown up from a acne plagued thirteen yr. old to a rather attractive twenty-two yr. old woman who liked to flirt, or so he would learn. She had no trouble with the fact that he was her brother either. It amused her to see him blush beneath her unsisterly touch.

She headed up flight after flight of the bone white stairs until she finally reached the largest of the apartments, which is where even she knew that the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard lived and resided. The Lord Commander was the leader of the knights that protected the royal family...originally meaning the Targaryens. It was leaning towards noon now so she wasn't surprised that he was alone in his palatial study.

His green eyes met her dark gray ones. They were infact so dark that they were a close match to her black hair. Her aqualine features met his and they simply observed one another for a moment. It wasn't love at first sight, but more of a measuring up sort of thing, the perverbial staring contest. Finally he decided to give in. "Lady Asha Greyjoy of Pyke, I presume?" She smiled and relaxed a bit. "That's right, Kingslayer." He gave her a droll look and indicated a chair with what was once his right hand. She was sure it was out of sheer habit that he did it now. She sat down across from him as he closed the White Book. The White Book was basically a living record of every knight who had ever been a member of the guard. She looked first at the book, white just like everything else in the tower, and then at his right arm ending in a gold hand. Her dark eyes rested on it for sometime, intrigued by it. It was a combination of craftsmanship and magic, which wasn't well-known in the Seven Kingdoms. Only recently had mages begun to resurface here. The last known sorcerers had died out more than a hundred years ago, and then a strange man came from the Free Cities in the service of the gods. He awakened something that had been thought long dead in some of the more powerful families in the realm. The Stark children had already begun to show a talent as skinchangers, each of them inheriting a direwolf as a gift from their father. There had been a wolf for each of them and the young Starks began to flourish, getting into the minds of their wolves, seeing what they saw and vice versa.

"Hmm," he said as if in serious thought, "so what brings you here? I'm sure there must be something I can sort out for you...otherwise you wouldn't have bothered climbing five flights of stairs...unless..." His expression seemed change like a molting snake. "Curious are you?" he said with a hint of amusement, a smile blooming over his features. Asha suddenly cocked her head, realization dawning on her. "You greenlanders are honey-tongued arent you? No. That's not why I'm here, this time, although I might take you up on the offer some other time." Pulling a strand of black hair behind her ear out of habit, she said, "What I need today is your intensions. My brother is king now, so where do you stand on the issue? You and your kingsguard."

Ser Jaime Lannister looked as if he were a mile away, but Asha didn't mind that, it wasn't what troubled her about him. He was a Lannister, and worse he was one of the more clever members of his house. Asha had seen him at a tourney when she was a girl and knew he was to be feared. Tourneys were events for enterainment, a place to make money and enjoy yourself, however it was also a place to showcase your skill as a knight. Ironmen were not knights, they didn't have what it took for that, the pageantry alone would have driven them half mad. Better to be themselves, they thought, than to have to conform to the habits of lords and ladies of the kingdoms. On Pyke they were wild men and answered only to themselves. But back then there had been a tourney and Jaime had honored them with his presence. Pyke was not an ideal tourney ground after all, but the king had insisted. She looked at him now, ten years later, and he still looked as beautiful as he had back then. There were a few more scars and his features were harder now, but he was still capable of killing a lady dead with nothing but a smile. However, in that head was a deadly killer, a murderous snake worse than any dragon. Behind that pretty head, those alluring green eyes was the Kingslayer.

Dragon's Royale

Trystane Martell sat on the battlements of Sunspear deep in thought. He knew that it was important that he stay focused, and yet he knew that that was nearly impossible. There was too much at stake here. He didn't worry too much of his own people, the people of Dorne were warriors to the end. Like so many of the people of Westeros they had made their mark as knights. However, he knew his knights were superior fighters...Dorne had never lost a war, so there was no question about their capability. More to the point, they would be fighting krakens (Greyjoys) and it was a known fact that their prowess was on sea and not so much the further away from the shore. Besides what good was a pirate in the desert?

As he looked out on the see, he saw the movement amont the trees, the only wood that could survive the heat of the deserts here. Trystane saw his brother smile then. "Stupid fools," he mused. Prince Quentyn was the second heir to Sunspear, in less of course one counted Annie's girls...but they were Lannisters too. Quentyn was tall and rangy with the blue black hair of their house, with blue eyes that were just as dark. "So how goes the battle?" he asked, leaning on his younger brother's shoulder. Trystane's gold eyes met his brother's darkest of blue ones. "Why ask me? I could honestly care less how it goes, I mean really what could they want with us? With Sunspear? They aren't even worth worrying about...the ironmen will have none of this heat? Its a desert, or have they forgotten? King's Landing, fine, anyone could rule that, but here? No one has conquered it since Queen Nymeria and no one will." Quentyn looked pleasantly surprised. Still, I took a precaution anyway...they seem quite determined... Besides they didn't cross the mountains like most idiots do, they came from Broken Arm... so I sent Myrcella out there." Trystane's golden eyes burined with the intensity of a thousand suns as he glared at his elder brother. "This isn't the Seven Kingdoms Quen! Are trying to give the girl sunburn?" Quentyn strode passed his brother calmly. "Relax, relax, Tryst. I wouldn't send her out there if I didn't think she could handle herself...and them. But you know their sort. One look at her and they will all probably try to rape her...bloody fools."

Trystane couldn't really see the comedy but he did see where his brother was coming from. His wife had inherited her acursed gift from him. He had been the sorcerer between them, but the consequences of magic gone arry can be terrible. He closed his eyes as he remembered the horrific night that it happened. And worse, Quentyn lay at the heart of all of it. He had decided that he would have his wife as his own, putting an end to the affair between she and his brother. But he had grown timid as his powers grew, twisting, evolving strangely like some hideous monster... He should never have pressed the issue, but jeolousy drove him. Myrcella had been betrothed to him since they were both children, she had come to live their when she was but eleven, and his parents saw nothing wrong with them consummating their marriage early. Naturally when the girl came of age they would marry so it made little difference to them if they became acquianted early. Three miscarriages later there was some strain in the relationship and Quentyn took advantage of that as Trystane struggled with his powers, where Quentyns came in stride. Trystane looked at his brother watching the impending battle that would finish the ironmans' presence in Dorne forever. He blamed his brother for what happened as much as he blamed himself. The idea that the princess was simply neglected and Quentyn just stepped in was the spearhead of it all. So against all advice, all sanity, all explanation, he bedded his wife in an attempt to make her conceive a child of his, and not his brother's. It worked, but one careless thought had allowed his dark powers to go wild, dark and undisceplined they ran through her delicate body and by the time his sister arrived it was almost too late. The end result left her alive but with a arm of bone. For a long time he couldn't bare to touch her, to look at her. Her very countenence brought the horrific night back to him, the feeling of utter despair of not having a healing power. His abilities only destroy and reanimate the dead...

He stared as he came back to the here and now. He saw his little princess, her blonde mane in delicate curls about her shoulders and down her back. She wore one of the silk dresses that she often favored especially in public, even as hot as it was here in Dorne. The red earth hardened beneath her steps and the knights dropped back as they saw her coming. As the head of the kraken's army arrived she curtsied, every inch a queen, then rose, and as she did, grabbed the first man's arm with the strength of twenty men; his flesh slothing off of his body, putrifiying as the others tried to back away. No escape, Trystane thought bitterly.

But as they watched the reinforcements arrive something entirely unexpected happened. The Martell brother's watched in disbelief as Myrcella screamed, and sank to the ground on her hands and knees. "What is happening out there?" Quentyn asked. "It should have been so simple," he growled, getting a better position on the battlement's edge. Soon Princess Arianne joined them, leaving the girl she had at her heels there, she joined them on the edge. "There's a sorceror out there," she informed them. "A chained maester with a hell of a punch!" In an instant three dragons launched themselves from the battlements and descended towards the battle.

Lady Janei looked on, apprehension gnawing at her. Myrcella was one of her many first cousins she was one of the ones she liked the best and not immortal. Below the princess sat on the ground not moving, but instead creating a aura about herself, glowing like a bondfire of green light. The crowds of warriors were running, charging towards the castle, all but one. "Maekar," she whispered. Maekar was himself a prince and now that his father had killed his mother he had an even more claim to the throne.

The three dragons took up position on the field, one black, one red, and one white. The White Dragon shielded the young princess as her shield of sorts gave way. "I have you," her husband said. His gold eyes meeting hers. Around them the Red and Black Dragons burned everything standing. Arianne dove for the young prince in his black robe, the uniform that proclaimed him a maester, and as she drew closer she coud see that he was a chained maester, not some simple novice. He was just a boy, no more than twelve but his power was what concerned her, not his age. She remembered Myrcella, who wasn't too shabby at the whole rotting-the-flesh-off-your-bones- thing. She could inhume an entire village without a second thought, so this was no weakling here. He regarded her with his mother's violet eyes, hidden beneath his father's raven-colored hair.

Beneath the ebon exterior of the Black Dragon, Arianne flinched at the thought of doing battle with him. First of all, he was a prince, although he might be of sundry birth he was still a prince. He was also related...his mother had been her cousin, not to mention the fact that her aunt had been married to the fallen queen's brother. The question of whether or not magic would have any effect if used against a dragon also whispered in her mind. She put all of that aside, he had joined his father's people, and that was all that mattered. Even now they were trying to destroy her people, her brothers. She was the Princess of Dorne, although she had stepped down to allow her brother the honor. Part of her had protested with every inch of her being, it had been her birthrite to rule, but she was married to the Lannisters and she knew all too well that if she brought her lord husband to Dorne, crowned him as her consort and all of that there could be some fairly terrible consequences, there would be issues of blood and marriage when their children came of age so she gave it to her brother. She accepted the demotion as a high-born lady...retaining her title of course, but a Lady nonetheless. She and her children would keep that as long as Martell blood ran in their veins. Even Quentyn wasn't so foolhardy as to strip it from her...no she kept all rights and priviledges of a princess of Dorne, a daughter of Sunspear, which were just like those of a son of Sunspear. Queen Nymeria, the woman who made the Martells the powerhouse that they had become, had seen to that. She had defeated the Martells and rather than killing their king, she married him and made his kingdom her own. The Black Dragon waited in the silence of the battle's din, waited for the maester-prince to make his move.

Prince Maekar," The Black Dragon said to the young maester. "Why are you doing this?" He looked at her, could barely make out the woman within the beast. He narrowed his violet eyes then. "The Targaryens, the dragons are gone. My mother, she was the last surviving child of the old king. Unless we count you of course." Even as a dragon the princess contrived to look mortified. "Youre going to eliminate us simply because we are blood relatives? It is more or less just an honorific," she told him. By now Her Grace was beginning to look put upon by this young prince who was half her age. She cocked her head in irritation and he noticed it. He smiled confidently but the certainty wasn't exactly there. She had been married to a Lannister for the last four or five years now and she had picked up a few things from him...like smelling fear. Lannisters were notorius for it, finding weaknesses and twisting them to their advantage.

The prince glared at her, crimson beneath her scales. His violet eyes seemed to drink the light into them as he watched her. He sought for a rational way to dispose of the beast, but he knew that magic did not work on a dragon, not even if she were a princess born true beneath. He ran his hand idly along his chains of office as he considered his options. It was infuriating to think that he would have to surrender or be burned by a dragon...a woman impersonating a beast. As he thought of what he might be able to pull off if he could force a transformation, he found himself gazing in those dark blue-black eyes of hers. Windows to the soul they had said. Now he wondered...but it wouldn't help him unless he could find a way to make her concentration waver so badly that she couldn't hold her form.
There was the sound of naked steel, and no sooner did the blade leap into life, bearing the blackest flame, did the princess retaliate with a bone crushing slap of her tail.

The prince lay on the ground, and the dragon-princess towered over him, her thin face twisted in mute fury. She grabbed him visciously in her talons and soared towards her castle, flanked by her younger brothers. As they flew, she took in the decimated armies of the traitorous power-hungry Greyjoys. Axes, swords, and shields littered the ground and the scent of death and fresh blood filled the air. Already the carrion crows had arrived to feast on the dead as well as the dying. The three dragons landed on the battlements of the castle of their birth and one after the other, returned to their human forms.

She held her prisoner fast in her grip, aware of his one hope of overpowering her, a mere woman, and making a run for it. She put nothing past him, however, aware that he was maester-trained and had learned some of the arts forbidden to those of their order. She kept an eye on him, even as she watched her brother, Prince Quentyn help the youngest of them, who had slumped to the ground. Trystane was exhausted, she knew. Shape-shifting had always been one of the harder manifestations of his ability and it took all he had to maintain it for that length of time. Arianne smiled as Quen pulled his brother to his feet like a little doll. Then she remembered her prisoner, the Greyjoy's Trump card. They would not pay a ransom for him, of that she was pretty certain. Although it was common practice within the realm she doubted that they would honor it...and she also had her misgivings about keeping the princeling around their desert home of Dorne.